Like Lou said, the oil/fat/lard is going to actually carbonize so it can be useful to use a fat with a low smoke point. I have used vegetable, olive oil sucessfully but you really have to bake it on to the pan. The pan is going to smoke like the devil if you're doing it right. A good testto see if you have a sufficient patina is that you should be able to cook an egg without oil and it won't stick. Here is what your pan should look like when you're done. Here is a fantastic post on seasoning cast iron" " acmorris Aug 23, 2007 02:30PM I'm answering a number of posts in this reply. You may want to get an 80 grit sand paper and scour the pot if it's new and unpolished, if you want to be 100% natural - use kosher salt. Your arms will appreciate the sand paper--much faster and less work. Unpolished is common with the brands you mentioned. Some brands also use a form of food wax for the initial season, nasty -- scrub it off. If you don't, you will notice over time that small chips appear that will be back filled with new carbon, giving a mottled texture. Think Waxed Paper (non stick), it doesn't adhere to metal, on the other hand, we've all scrubbed that brown goo from the bottom of pans (carbonized oil); and we know how well that adheres. Once you are ready to season, wash the pan well with soap, dry it on a burner. I've used cast iron for more almost 40 years, some of my cookware is twice as old as I am :) There is contention all over the web about what to use for seasoning, truth is just about anything. Vegetable Oils, corn in particular aren't the greatest since they take much longer to fully carbonize. They will work just as good as any other, but need near double the time in the oven to develop. Don't worry about sticky residues, explained below. Any Oil you have on-hand will work, I'm partial to Olive Oil or Crisco/Animal Fats, in that order. Olive Oil is natural and has been around longer than cast iron cookware, it predates by 1200-1400 years. Olive oil is also naturally antibiotic. Do NOT use cooking sprays for this purpose. Three reasons why pots come out sticky, and only three: 1. Oven temp too low. 2. Pan was not turned upside down so that puddles formed. 3. Not enough time was allowed for lubricant to complete the conversion to carbon. Things you need: 1. Take your pick from, Natural Bristle Pastry Brush, Paper Towel, Cloth Towel/Rag 2. Cookie Sheet lined with foil placed on Bottom Rack of Oven or an Oven Liner 3. Open windows if your oven doesn't vent outside. Seasoning Cast Iron does generate smoke similar to a cooking in a dirty oven. Turn on your oven to bake @ 500-550F Lightly coat your cast iron with your selection of lubricant. Do not allow any puddles to remain. Place the pan(s) on the top rack (not on the foil) for a few hours upside down until no more odor/smoke comes off the pan when you check on it. This takes a few hours. Repeat process until you have a nice black carbon layer. My usual on new or reseasoned cookware is 3-4 coats. Just until the pan turns carbon black or very near. If you can see a lot of color (grey, orange to brown etc), then the carbon layers aren't thick enough, reapply and bake it again. I just slide the rack out and brush on a new layer. Once you are satisfied, bake for an additional 3-4 hours to set the finish. Your cookware should be black or very near, glossy and not sticky or slimy. Your new seasoning can't be washed off, with the exception of using Lye. Avoid scrub pads of any kind for 3 months, use a vegetable brush if needed; at this point your cast iron will outlast your great-grand children. You can test your new carbon layer by toasting bread with your pan. If it doesn't stick, nothing will. You can even try this with high end non-stick cookware and find that the cast iron fares much better with this test. More about sticky pans: Your pan won't be sticky if the burn is complete. Sticky pots come from an incomplete burn of the oil layers. Rather than convert the oil to carbon, it's been rendered to tar. This is why some advocate not using vegetable oils (corn oil). Those oils have a high smoking point, and take longer to develop the carbon layer we are looking for. This can be fixed by baking your pan for several hours as described above. Dust, Lint, Food and all sorts of things will stick to your pans inside and out. Over time as the incomplete layers do carbonize; this debris will become part of your cookware's finish. I'm sure you've seen cast iron with bumpy areas, inside and/or out. Now you know what it is. Also, since this debris does settle into the glue like tarry oil, rinsing with water before use won't rinse it off. The only way to contend with this is to scrub down below where the offending material was introduced. Lubricating cold cookware before you put it away: Not a good idea, never has been, never will be. Lubricants do evaporate, they become tarlike. Debris and food will stick to the pan over time and result in a finish that is not smooth. For those people that will disagree with me on this, ever notice what the pan feels like after it's sat for a few days? Sticky? The cookware gets quite enough oil to maintain the carbon layer from simple use. Once your base layer is on, the maintenance is a continual process as another user stated. If you do a lot of no-fat cooking and the finish starts to turn grey, once it's dried on the burner, put two or three drops of oil in the pan and wipe it around with a paper towel/cloth. Let the pan heat up until it begins to smoke then remove from the heat. Care - there's many opinions on this one as well. If you use the high-heat method to season, no amount of dish soap is going to wash it off. It will however remove the oils from the surface, and your seasoning will wear down over time; since there is no maintenance. Water Only or Dish Soap is your personal choice, but if you do use soap, when the finish begins to grey just add a few drops of oil and smear it around, heat the pan and let it begin smoking, remove from heat. Avoid using cooking sprays for cast iron maintenance. These evaporate very fast and will result in the cookware having a gummy texture; attracting all sorts of debris that will become permanent in the carbon layer once enough heat is used. As for commentary about cooking eggs with no oil in cast iron, I do it all the time :) When that puppy's done, just slides right onto that toast!! It does take 8-16 hours to season a new piece. The lower the smoking point of the lubricant, the shorter the time. Any method that doesn't result in your cookware turning black, will result in foods that stick and an overall displeasure with cast iron."

My experience with the Lopi and my criticism of it is based on comparing it with my pot belly in my work shop. A Vogelzang. A bit of paper a couple of sticks of wood and Voila, fire. In contrast the Lopi requires paper or a starter log, small wood then larger wood. Finally a fire but youÂre not finished. It requires constant tending. I attribute this to the poor design of the Lopi. It is designed as a piece of furniture. It looks nice. The pot belly is designed as a stove. It has a higher than wide fire box. Fires are vertical not horizontal. It has the fire separated from ashes with a grate. You can easily put long pieces in the top. Not so with the Lopi. Frankly it stinks as a stove. Not literally. So I want to switch which requires painting the pot so it will look more presentable. Now it looks God awful, all rusty and with this white stuff on top of the rust. The Lopi has a 6" stove pipe straight up through the roof. There is a sort of collar at the ceiling for which I canÂt remember how it is attached. I tried to lift the stove to see how heavy it was and it wouldnÂt budge. Possible that the pipe is screwed together so tight that it is keeping the stove from moving. I need to ask someone about the collar thing.

My grates are black, and when they look a little goey I toss them in the dishwasher. And boy that does the trick they look like new again. I have heard (don't quote me) that this can cause them to rust. I wonder if this would be the case with SS grates. Mine are some black metal, not sure what they are made of. Bosch Range. ~boxerpups This is from Good Housekeeping Magazine Ask Helouise Is there an easy way to keep burners from getting grimy? -- Elizabeth Malvey, Wakefield, MA If you cook, there's really no way around it -- but you can give burners a thorough cleaning. Start by wiping grates and burners with a damp sponge. Remove grates and soak in hot, soapy water for 30 minutes. Add a teaspoon of ammonia to the sink water to help loosen the grime. Scrub them with a stiff brush to remove any remaining gunk. To minimize future messes, keep an eye on pots so they don't boil over.

I was not familiar with Phyllis Stokes, but I just watched one of her videos and she stated that as she had a new glass-top range so she had not used much of her cast iron lately. She is quite misinformed if she thinks you cannot use cast iron on smooth-top ranges. The Lodge company states clearly that they have smooth-top ranges in their test kitchens. Guess what kind of cookwear they are testing? As to her seasoning method, I used that method, ONCE. I couldn't stand having my kitchen smoke up like that, so I never season in the oven now, I use my gas grill, outside. It works perfectly, and no worries about smoking.